it could not last
by matchboxcars
Summary: ashes, ashes, we all fall down…and I hope to never get up again, complete
1. Chapter 1

Her son was at the garden gate. He did not move, and from the position she was in, it looked as if the tall grasses that grew on the side of the path had formed a barricade to his entrance. She was watching from the window, feeling very much outside of herself, noting the color of her eyes as she distantly watched Spock set his expression, beginning at the forehead, and then moving down. It was like watching a rubix cube, except no colored blocks, only a young boy who had been taunted all day and then chased home. Amanda started, the snap of the shutters against the wall had brought her back to herself, she was suddenly aware of her breathing, of the slight tremors in her hands, of the panic in her gut. What could she do? Mothers always want to help their children, mothers always want what they cannot have. She shut her eyes, allowing the lids to exhaustedly rest on the cusp of skin, feeling very alone, very tired, feeling very much like her son.

"two plus two is four, six times six is thirty six, ring around the rosy, pockets full of posy, ashes, ashes, we all fall down…and I hope to never get up again. Four times four is sixteen, two hundred forty six plus nine hundred eighty one is equal to one thousand, two hundred twenty seven…"

He could not breathe, he had to focus, time was slipping away and if he waited any longer, his father would appear and Spock would turn into the ugly black monster his father saw him as, not the Vulcan he was trying so desperately to become. Spock was very tired, his mind became a recorded tape, a system of equations playing robotically through the synapses, often over run by his mother's voice singing senseless rhymes, senseless but comforting. And where was his mother? Did she not see him in the garden, next to the lilies and hydrangeas? He desperately wanted her to stay away, he did not want her to see him, but, maybe her voice from the window would not be such a torment.

"the wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round…"

His son was in the garden, barely through the gate, and he could hear as he approached the fierce whisper of the child, the recitations of equations, growing infinitely more complicated as the hands that belonged to the voice shook more.

"Meditation would be more efficient"

He knew, having allowed the words to slip through his mouth that, perhaps, this was not the wisest time to have said that, that, perhaps, knowledge of the cause of his son's emotionalism would have been more effective in isolating and obliterating the problem. Sarek sighed inwardly, a sinking feeling within led him to gentle his voice,

" Were they tormenting you again?"

The smallest voice answered, one full of shame, self reprimand, and, surprisingly to Sarek, fear,

"Yes"

"How did you respond, my son?"

" I did not, but they chased me home, I ran, it would have been illogical to do otherwise."

Spock had not turned, but Sarek could discern from the angle of his son's shoulders that he ran not only for logic, but also, that Spock had been afraid. And where was Amanda, she would normally have been worried; he looked to the window.

"Have you seen your mother"

"No"

"You will accompany me inside, you must meditate"

Sarek realized too late the harshness of his voice, the drop of his son's head, the return of tension to the young boy's features. He once again softened his tone, allowed a gentleness to slip through,

"I will summon you when the evening meal is ready, you may do the same if you require any assistance, and we will discuss the matter of your peers at a later time tonight."

"I am honored by your attentions"

"And I by your diligence"

Amanda was half-asleep. Spock was at the top of a cherry blossom tree, and the white flowers kept sticking to his hair. Amanda was very small, she kept hopping from blossom to blossom, laughing, and wondering if her son could see her. Sarek wanted to rouse her, she could sense him from the corner, his reality impeding upon spring brightness, his ever darkening noir returning her to the black dahlias of her actual life. She had no wish to return, begging her husband from her spot on a petal to allow her to stay, she was drifting so beautifully amongst all of this flora, Spock was laughing, couldn't he hear it? It sounded like birds and the lapping of the ocean. Spock was laughing.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's note: these are just little episodes, there is no time correlation between them, please review!

Disclaimer: not mine

Her son was in the midst of a nightmare. She was glad Sarek would not be home tonight, for Vulcans were not supposed to dream, and she knew he would percieve it as a fault. She shook Spock awake, and he rose with such speed that Amanda flinched. Spock looked desperately at her,

"it was a dream sweety."

"I thought…"

"you're human half"

"oh"

She went to brush his bangs out of his eyes, but he turned his back to her, his tiny fists clenched, his body trembling,

"Spock?"

He turned lethargically towards her, his entire expression solid marble. She wanted to cry. There had once been a time when he would have allowed her hints as to what he was feeling, but not anymore. He would not allow anyone that privilege, not even himself.

"what happened"

"specify"

"in your dream, Spock, tell me what happened"

The boy shook his head, a haunted reminiscence flitting through his dark eyes. It had been bad enough, she knew that, and, steeling herself, she reached out her hand once more, barely touching his shoulder. He shuddered but did not move away, she moved the other hand, allowing it to creep to his back, feeling very much as if she were approaching a wild animal, as if she were Jane Goodall or Monty Roberts, all those animal whisperers from long ago.

Spock did not respond but he did not move away. It was very dark, and Amanda, always one to hate the night, was beginning to feel afraid. Spock, having felt her fear, turned. He hated that he would always blame her for the lack of Vulcan within him, for the emotionalism, the dreams, the difficulties, but she was the reason he existed, and he did not know the opposite of existence, but assumed it was at least as bad as living, so he also loved her. He could feel her fear, recognized it within himself, though for different reasons. He met her eyes, could only whisper

"The Sandman's coming in his train of cars

With moonbeam windows and with wheels of stars"

Amanda began to sob


	3. Chapter 3

She wondered if Spock would ever see the ocean. She thought to herself that it would be very sad if he did not, for he would look so perfect there, at sunset, standing, watching the water with his scientifically calculating eyes doing everything to avoid recognizing the loneliness of his position. He would mesh with the loneliness of great bodies of water. She met her son's eyes from across the reception, where he was standing, very erect and stiff, with his grandmother. Amanda hated T'Pau, despised the coldness with which she regarded her grandson, loathed the way she simply did not recognize all of Spock's desperate attempts to gain her acceptance as a relative, as a child of her son. Amanda often felt that she was the only one who Spock's gaze would meet. She sighed, craned her neck to the window, pretended she was the tree just in her line of vision.

Spock's eyes tried to clutch to Amanda's as her glance retreated. She deserted him once again, he knew, to try to escape this barren mass of beings. His grandmother was behind him, like a vulture, waiting for an imperfection as he stood amongst his cousins. He bowed his head, better to assume the position of shame before the crime has been committed, illogical but effective.

"Spock?"

"Yes grandmother?"

"You are ill representing the family with your body pose, stand tall"

"Please forgive me"

"There is nothing to forgive, simply correct"

He stood taller, the muscles in his back protesting the length of their endurance. His mother was still looking out the window, he had no one to protect him from the scorn, the disdain, the dehumanization he felt emanating from those around him, from his own family.

He became a tiny worm, tracing the patterns on the tiled floor, skittering through the earthen crevices, the cool clay, around all the faces and bodies of the giants, the mean and evil giants, the ones that wanted to stomp him into oblivion with all of their logic and harsh reality, all of their unemotional hatred.

Finally he was released. His mother was no longer a tree, but the laughing distraction in the middle of solemnity. She was like a blue jay at a funeral. Spock tugged her skirt, she lifted him to her arms, gently kissed his forehead. His stomach turned, they were all watching, he was weak, he was an animal, he was not worth existence.

"Tell you're aunt what story we are reading"

He turned into her shoulder, he couldn't say it, he loved the story, he really did, and because of that affection, it was sacred, it was secret, why wasn't she keeping it hidden with him? Did it mean so little to her?

"Tell her Spock, help her understand"

His small head turned away from the coolness of her skin, the oblivion leaving as soon as it had come, now he was completely alone, she had taken his secrets from him and tossed them to the dogs.

"The Ugly Duckling" he whispered, and ducked his head back into her so as not to hear the bite of his aunt's remarks.

They were not yet finished the story. He could see everyone at the party glaring at him, their eyes mimicking again and again in swirling chaos,

"You are exceedingly ugly."

Spock did not think he would become a swan.


	4. Chapter 4

Author's note: thanks to everyone who has reviewed!

Disclaimer: not mine

Hush-a-bye, don't you cry;

Go to sleep my little baby.

Her son had such horribly large eyes. They were all seeing, they were always questioning. She did not have the answers. Oh, how tiresome it had become, this lack of answer, this inability to fill the voids that she knew riddled her son's consciousness. He made her so weary, standing there, watching her pour the tea, his tea, she had never thought that children of his age would ever really drink tea, let alone want it, but he was so old, he had already transcended her with his suffered agedness.

"What did you learn today?"

"We read Hamlet"

She wanted to cry. The boy was only six, he was reading Hamlet. He had such large eyes.

"I'm sorry", she whispered.

Spock watched her disappear down the hall, her narrow hand reaching up to massage the pasty skin on her temple. She was gone. He sipped the hot liquid as he stared at the full glass, the empty chair, the stinging quiet. She did not return, but as he walked to his room, he could hear her sobs from the doorway of the parlor. She was curled on the floral print sofa, the one in the corner under the window. There was light beaming over her, there was light everywhere. He sat down next to her, folded his hands into his lap, wondered what he had done, how he could fix it, when would she stop?

"you have done nothing"

"but you are distraught"

"please, I just.."

She could not stand him, he was taking her energy, her joy, he took it all with his huge encompassing eyes. He needed to go, she had to be away from him, she was dying, he was killing her.

He could see the desperation in her gaze, the wild trapped animal in the frantic flitting of her hands. She couldn't stand him, he could tell. He must leave. In his room, he explored the bookshelf, sat on the bed, and was frozen. Paralyzed by guilt, he waited for a sound, flinched at the closing of the door, the sound of his father approaching the room she was in, he could not move. It grew dark. He could not move.

The bees and the butterflies peckin' out its eyes;

The poor wee thing cried for her mammy.


	5. Chapter 5

Where had she gone?

He was standing in the middle of the market place, surrounded on all sides by fruits and vegetables, by cold faces and sterile interactions. His mother was gone. Slowly he pivoted around, trying to find her, trying not to be seen, though he knew he was, everyone saw him. He did not make a sound. He did not see her. She had left him again, trapped.

Amanda was looking at apples. She was talking to herself, she was desperate. She hated coming here, there was no life, no expression, no passion. There were no worms in the apples.

"I'll take three"

Spock began to take small steps forward, very carefully, very quietly, whispering to himself the names of the fruits, counting the stones on the ground, looking up, putting one foot down, not a sound, then the other, not a sound. They must not know that he is afraid.

She had lost her son. The apples had been so red, he had been so silent, where had she left him? She saw him on the right, next to the juice stand, quiet, quiet, quiet, a stony face, drawn in lips, eyes frantically swirling around, looking for her.

He put his hand into hers, just for a second. He was very tired, he had nothing to say.

"Have you ever had an apple before, Spock?"

_Snow White longed for the fine apple, and when she saw that the woman ate part of it she could resist no longer, and stretched out her hand and took the poisonous half. But hardly had she a bit of it in her mouth than she fell down dead._

Spock said nothing. It was simply a thought, slightly like a nightmare, but brief, but conscious.

Amanda started. She looked at her child, so young, so mute, she went cold.

"Not all apples are poisoned"

He nodded, touched her wrist, walked next to her. He did not respond. She was still cold.


	6. Chapter 6

He had known a long time ago that sunsets signified cold nights and the end of the sun baking the already cracked and thirsty ground. He was so removed, no longer watching her with any emotion except loneliness. She was not there. He was alone, in his room, surrounded by piles of worn fairy tales that had kept them together, had let them understood tiny shards of each other. Had let them be mother and son.

But he had grown so old, so tired, so far, far away. And she knew that this would happen someday, this removal of those illogical and beautiful stacks of paper in exchange for such concrete logic. But she knew he would never be the passionless creature he longed so harshly to be. He was too sad, too beaten, so far gone. She is watching through the crack in the door, she will not come in this time; in fact, she has not come in in a long time. The door was shut from both sides.

He carefully lays them in stacks inside the bag, goodbye Cinderella, mother goose, Alice in Wonderland, Dr. Seuss, Peter Pan. Goodbye. Don't come back. It's hard to make reparations for imaginary worlds where somehow, some way, the good guy comes out on top, and there is magic, and green grass, and the evil people are old and ugly. How wrong they were. Evil is so prettily disguised, so young, so terrifyingly familiar. Goodbye. Don't come back. The door is locked, from both sides.

She's running down the hallway because he will be emerging soon from that abyss of memories not so far in the past. But he's gone, she knows, he won't be here when she wakes up tomorrow, but she's hoping that maybe there will finally be some noise in the house, maybe she will get a bird, so it could sing to her. He will be gone in the morning. She feels relieved, almost free, she thinks she may cry, she doesn't know if he'll make it, what if he comes back? What if he dies? She falls into a corner. She begins to cry. He is approaching her. She feels like a horse.

"I'm sorry," he says, and she knows he is, that he is terrified, but trapped, "and alone" she whispers to herself, but he does not hear, he wouldn't understand anyways, what else has he known?

"What did you say?"

"You've painted me into a corner"

She begins to sob, he sits down next to her, she's chocking out the words, he takes her hand, not knowing why gray skies are a bad thing, but singing anyways.

"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine

You keep me happy when skies are gray

You'll never know how much I love you

Please don't take my sunshine away"

She's curled up in his arms. He has grown so much. He is leaving.

"Please don't take my sunshine away"


End file.
